A Matter Of Duty
by Pierogis
Summary: Work forces Javert to temporarily be stuck with someone's child. He's trying his best to ignore it, but the child is having none of it.
1. Obligations

"You are one of them, aren't you?"

Javert gritted his teeth. He did not even need to ask what it referred to. Out of the gang ambushed last night - a case that he was just handing his report for - the only member unlucky enough not to avoid arrest was a Romani woman. This is why he tried to finish the case as quickly as possible - every time a Roma was even briefly involved in any of his cases, there was simply no avoiding comments. No one said to his face, most of the time - just whispers and rumors that he could overhear for a few days, that continued to make him furious until everyone has moved on to another case. This time it was way more open - he was being asked this by his superior, and he could not brush him off.

"No, monsieur, I am not," he replied a bit coldly. He was not. It was nothing more than a matter of heritage. He did not consider himself to be, and no sane Romani would not consider him to be of their kin, not with the life that he led. Still, his skin tone and some old rumors were enough for half of the police force of Paris to consider him to be one, as much as he hated it.

Gisquet seemed to notice his attitude toward the question and waved it off. "Oh, you know what I mean. You do speak their language, right?"

"Yes," he replied shortly. Though not used by him for decades, Romani was the first language that he had learnt. He had never forgotten it completely. Given that the woman was arrested in Paris, chances were that they spoke in the same variety of it - if he had to be honest, he had no idea how the variety that he knew was called. Still, he failed to see why was he being asked that - to the best of his knowledge, she only spoke French since she was arrested.

"They are still having problems obtaining the information, you see," the prefect continued.

"Monsieur, if you want to suggest that, I doubt that asking in a different language will make any difference," Javert replied carefully.

"Not the woman, no. The other arrestee, perhaps," Gisquet pointed out.

Javert needed a moment to realize what he has been talking about. There was another arrested person, though he did not consider it - the woman's child was caught as well. She did not seem like a worthwhile source of information; a small girl, no older than five or six years old, judging from appearance, was less than likely to know much about the gang's plans, even if she was involved in some of its work.

"See, the child is still being kept at the station house," the perfect carried on. "They are trying to find out what she knows. She hasn't spoken a single word in French, though. She might not even speak it," he shrugged.

Javert nodded, holding back an exasperated sigh. "Understood, monsieur. I will speak to the child."

His demand to speak face to face with the child was met with a couple of amused glances. They would not dare mock him openly, but obviously they enjoyed being reminded of the inspector's heritage. Javert ignored it, just glaring at anyone who would smirk at him. Better to be over this case as soon as possible.

He sent everyone away from the immediate surroundings of the cell before he entered it - he needed no additional witnesses, and the child did not need to associate him with the police. That would just make it harder.

The child was sitting in a regular cell, but at least it was a rather secluded part of the station. There were prisoners in the cells nearby, but none of them expressed any sort of interest in interacting with the child, and the walls provided enough privacy.

Javert entered the cell and closed the door behind him; at least in this case he did not have to worry about a potentially dangerous prisoner attacking him. The figure hunched on a plank bed in the corner could hardly pose a threat - she was tiny and frail-looking and clad in torn cloth, just like most gamins that he had seen on the streets. Her tangled brown hair rested on her back, and her slightly lighter eyes followed Javert curiously as he entered the cell.

Javert pulled a wooden chair from another corner of the room toward the bed and sat on it, facing the girl.

He did not often interview children, nor did he enjoy it in the slightest. They tended to be unpredictable. In some cases it was harder to get information from them than from adults. Not to mention that nearly all of them were horribly unbearable and either loud or hysterical.

How should he approach this one, then? He could not tell from her behaviour which kind was she. He decided that it would be safer not to scare her.

With some displeasure he forced himself to switch to his old language. "What's your name?" he asked.

The girl's head jerked up at the sound of his words. A grin shone over her face. "So you are-!"

Javert nearly winced. He would not confirm anything - he wanted to avoid lying - but it was better not to deny either. Let the child think whatever she wants, as long as it makes her talk. "Well, what are you called?" he asked again.

The girl beamed. "It's Shofranka! And who are you?"

Javert narrowed his eyes. He would rather avoid giving his name, but it might make the child suspicious if he avoided telling it now, if she were to notice it. "Javert."

She tilted her head. "Oh, it's not a first name, is it?"

"It's not. Doesn't matter," he brushed her off. "Have you been here for long? It's not a very comfortable place, is it?" he asked. He suspected that making some small talk with the child might make her less reluctant to reveal the more important information. Perhaps she will not notice him switching to the topics that interest him.

"Oh, the place is not that bad - I have my own bed and they even gave me food!" Shofranka chirped. "I wish they would let me out, though. I mean, how long can I sit here? I did nothing bad, I shouldn't be in prison," she huffed, crossing her arms.

Javert rolled his eyes. "Yes, I'm sure of it. What did you even get here for?"

"It's something that mom did again," the girl shrugged. "I told her that it's a bad idea, hanging out with these suspicious people, that we were doing just fine without them, but no!" she threw her arms up. "And now what? I don't even know where she is now! Should have listened to me, silly mum. Do you know if she's here? I want to see her."

"She's not. But yes, that was rather... _silly_ of her. Where did she even find such despicable people? That's just nonsense."

"By accident, really! That was a while ago, when it was still cold. We were walking around some bars and mum was looking for a job and in one of them - uh, I forgot its name, but they had a whale on their sign. And that one big bulky man talked to us, said that he has a nice job to offer for both of us. He looked really mean and had a nasty scar, too, right here!" she traced her finger on her cheek. "So of course I didn't like him, not one bit! And I didn't want his job at all, but mum said that it would help us and that we should go and meet his friends like he told us to. So we went there!"

"Oh? You went where?" Javert leaned forward a bit.

"To that storehouse where he told us they would meet! It looked really, really sketchy, it did! I mean, why would they meet in an abandoned storehouse?"

"A storehouse, you say? One of these in the north of the city?"

"Nope, not at all! This one was just on the edge of the river. There was once grain or whatever there but it's all empty now. He told us how to find it, that there would be a blacksmith just across the road from it and that it would have the door painted red, but only the door. And he told us to come there at night! Who meets at such times?!"

"Oh, that is horrible," Javert said flatly. "But you went anyway?"

"Yes, yes, mum said that it was a good deal. But when we came there, they were all hidden! And when they noticed that there were just the two of us, they came out - with weapons! All of them carried some blades or guns or even worse things, can you imagine? They were scary!"

"I'm sure they were. So did they threaten you?"

"Not really! Said that they just wanted to make sure we didn't come with the police. And we didn't so they stopped pointing these at us. Didn't make them any less scary, I'd say. So they talked to mum about something and mum said that we will work with them."

"And you did?"

"We did!" she nodded. "Mum started leaving for the whole days and I was delivering letters sometimes."

"Oh, letters? Where to?"

"A lot of places, all around Paris! There was one on a ground floor of that huge yellow house at Rue Sainte-Avoie, and a bakery on Rue de Fils, except the letter was to the apprentice and not the baker, and a red-haired man in a pub on Rue de Varenne, who even gave me a coin for that..."

Javert discreetly took out his notepad and jotted down the details while the child was distracted with babbling about the letters. It was... way easier than he thought it would be. The girl was nearly eager to share everything, though she has not spoken a single word to the policemen. He guessed that she could speak French, considering how she was in contact with the criminals, so perhaps she just refused to speak to the police. She probably did not think him one - he was not wearing an uniform and there were no other officers who spoke this language, as far as he knew. Still, it was a good thing that children tended to be so foolish. This saved the police a long struggle with extracting the information from the girl's mother.

In such case, he would need to avoid anything that might suggest her that he is an inspector, at least until the case closes. He glanced up at her, but she did not seem to be bothered by him noting her words down.

He continued asking her about the details - addresses, names, appearances of the members of the gang. He could barely believe that they allowed a child to learn so much, though he had to admit that she told none of that to anyone whom she knew to be a policeman.

Within half an hour he had enough information to find, as he suspected, majority of the gang, if not all of them. As well as a lot of rather useless stories about how one of them got her an orange once or about how her mum told her that she's proud of her working so hard and how now they could afford to live in one place and have dinner every day. He ignored most of those, just nodding absently.

At the end of one of these stories, he decided that it was no point questioning the child further. He had enough information for his liking, and now what he was getting was mostly trivia about Shofranka's life and a headache.

He got up from his chair. "It's time for me to go," he announced as he turned towards the door.

"Wait, what about me?" he heard the child's voice behind him.

He rose his eyebrow, turning over his shoulder. "What about you?"

"Well, I don't want to be sitting here forever," she pouted. "If you're going, take me as well!"

Javert sighed. "I can't do that," he explained.

"And why not?" Shofranka protested.

"You've been arrested. You have to stay here," he shrugged.

"That's stupid. My mum has been arrested too and she's not here. I want to be arrested where she is."

Javert rolled his eyes as he left the cell, closing the door behind him. "We'll see about that."

Shofranka slid down from the bed and trotted towards the bars. "But you will come again soon, won't you?"

"Perhaps." If he will need more information.

The child's face beamed at him from behind the bars. "See you, then!"

Questioning Shofranka further did not prove to be necessary, much to his relief. He got back to the case immediately, sending officers to all of the places she mentioned and looking for the men described. A few of them have already managed to escape, but their tracks were still fresh enough to follow, and many of the suspects were found in the given addresses. He had only hoped that there will be enough proof to get all of them proper sentences.

After a few days, when the majority of the gang has already been imprisoned and others were likely going to be arrested soon, the prefect asked to see him.

"Inspector, I would like to assign you to another case," Gisquet started as soon as Javert walked into his office. "We are grateful for your contribution, and I believe that you might be of more use elsewhere from now on. The unrest on the streets can no longer be ignored. I need skilled people to investigate the possibility of upcoming revolution. I will send the details to your office soon," he said quickly, without tearing his eyes off the papers on his desk.

"Understood, monsieur," Javert bowed his head. "Is there something else?" he added after a brief pause. There had to be. He would not be called here only for this announcement.

"Well," Gisquet started, folding his hands together and looking at Javert. "You know about the increased amount of arrests in the recent times. We've been finding people involved in planning the revolution for a while, and now we have added a fairly big criminal gang to them. Many of these people have not yet had their trials, so they still reside in prisons within the city. Shortly, it's getting crowded."

"I am aware of the problem, monsieur."

"Even worse, many of these arrested had children. Children who were often not involved in their crimes, and who with a proper guidance could still become decent citizens."

Javert suddenly felt some undefined sense of dread. "What does it have to do with my job, monsieur?"

"See, we're all out of space. With this rate of arresting, we cannot waste space in prison on so many children. So they have been placed in orphanages, monasteries, even families who agreed to take them in for the time being. But now we really are out of space. Beside," Gisquet looked away toward the window, "nobody wants to take in a Gypsy child."

Javert stared at him in disbelief. "Monsieur, you cannot possibly be implying-"

"You are the only one who even managed to communicate with that girl," Gisquet interrupted him. "She-" he squinted at one of the papers on the desk- "Flavie, was it? She cannot stay for longer at the station house. We need that cell for actual criminals, not some gamin children."

Javert frowned slightly. Was Flavie her official name? He had never checked. But he assumed that it was Shofranka that the prefect was talking about.

"And in the current state of matters," Gisquet went on undisturbed, "we have no place to put her in. Even the ones who agreed to take care of some of these children for now did not agree to take in a Gypsy one. And we cannot just put her on the street either, especially as the information that she knows might still prove to be useful. It would be just for a while, until everything calms down a bit, people are given their trials and we can find more room for the children."

"Monsieur, I am not exactly the right person for this task," Javert protested.

"I'm afraid that you might be the only person capable of undertaking this task, considering how nobody else even managed to talk to this child. Beside, she has been living on her own in a cell for a few days now, only receiving food. It would only be a matter of keeping an eye of her. You would receive a raise to cover for her expenses as well. She would simply stay at your house."

"It really isn't a good idea-"

Gisquet sighed. "Look, consider it a part of your duty, Javert," he stared at him with a stern look on his face. "This is an order."

Javert looked at him with terror. He clenched his jaw. "Yes, monsieur."

This was absurd. Absolutely ridiculous. It would have even been laughable, had it not been so terrible. It did look like a joke.

But it was also an order from his superior.

Looking after criminals' children was not exactly a part of his job. But times have been hard. He could not refuse an order from the prefect himself. Even one as ridiculous as this.

The next morning he headed to the station house, barely hiding his distaste. Everyone there seemed to be informed of the situation by now, somehow - they must have received the orders concerning the child. Someone even patted him on the back and wished him luck. He wished him death, but said nothing.

He would have walked towards guillotine more eagerly than he did toward the cells. Sure, he had to notice that each cell he passed was occupied by one or even a few people. The prefect was right about the situation. It did not lift his mood at all.

As soon as he reached the right cell, he heard a creak accompanied by a squeal. The girl immediately jumped up to the bars. "You're back!" she exclaimed, beaming.

Javert felt like he was one step away from murdering the child on the spot.

"Yes," he drawled out. "Yes, I am."

"What took you so long? I thought you would never come, it's been so long! And it's so boring in here!" she started chattering.

Javert noticed that despite her being just as bouncy as before, if not more, she looked paler and perhaps even thinner than a few days ago. Her long hair had also disappeared - it was cut close to her skin, leaving uneven short hairs to stick out in all directions.

"Yes, about that - you can come out now," he stated rather coldly, unlocking the door to the cell.

"Oh!" Shofranka's eyes sparkled as she watched the door open. "Can I go to mum?"

"No," Javert shook his head as he observed her come out of the cell, looking around with wonder. "You will stay at my apartment for the time being."

Shofranka gasped.

"Just for a while," Javert emphasized.

She gaped at him with wide eyes. "Are you my dad now?"

"What? No, absolutely not. Just," he sighed, "come along," he turned away and walked back where he came from.

Shofranka trotted by his side, clinging to his arm. "I never had a dad before!" she announced cheerfully.

"No, don't- don't do that," Javert freed his arm. "Oh, but one more thing," he turned to her as he reached the door at the end of the corridor. "If you try running away, you won't be seeing your mother again."

She seemed shocked by this suggestion. "I won't! Promise!"

"Good," he said, pushing the door.

As soon as they walked through the door, multiple heads turned toward them. Javert put his hands into his pockets and marched through the station, stubbornly staring forward, not paying heed to the amused glances.

He looked back at the girl to make sure that she's following him; she was busy sticking out her tongue at a group of officers. Javert nudged her back, hurrying her to walk forward. "Behave," he growled, receiving a quiet giggle in the response.

At least nobody dared to comment on it. He reached the exit without hearing a word and walked out on the street.

" _Adieu_!" he heard Shofranka call toward the station house before the door closed.

"Good to know you speak French," he mumbled with a scoff.

"Of course I do!" Shofranka passed next to him and leapt onto the pavement, spreading out her hands and spinning. "Well, finally!" she laughed when she felt the sun warm her skin. "I was getting quite sick of that place!"

"This way," Javert stated as he walked along the road. He could hear that the girl's bare feet followed him.

"It was so boring sitting there for so long! Why didn't you come sooner?" Shofranka resumed her chatter. "The food there was awful too! Sure, it's nice to get food at all, but me and mum have been having much nicer meals lately. I want to see mum. And they cut my hair, see?" she ran her hand through the bristles of hair on her head. "Because I had _fleas_ or whatever. I don't know if I had any fleas. I think they probably wanted to be mean. Because they don't like me," she crossed her arms, pouting. "Well, I don't like them either! Because they are the police. Mum said not to speak to the police, ever. So I didn't!"

Javert listened to her rambling with resignation. If she was like that all day, it will be a painful period of time. He'd rather have her remain in prison. She would probably return there after a while either way. After all, what were the chances that this child will grow up to be at least a decent person, having been raised by a criminal?

Oh.

The same chances as he had.

 _Oh._

The same, or even bigger. He was _born_ in prison. Have their situations not been similar? He was also brought up by an arrested criminal, they were raised with the same set of rules. He also had his fair share of sitting in a cell, his hair had also been cut because of the fleas.

He did not become a criminal himself, he rose above it. But have his chances not been as slim as these of that girl?

That girl, who was currently pulling on his coat, disturbed by how he suddenly stopped walking.

"What's wrong?" she asked, clinging to the fabric. "Let's go!"

"Stop pulling it," he commanded, peeling her hands off his coat and resuming walking with no explanation.

"It's a very nice flat!" Shofranka commented while rustling around Javert's apartment.

Javert would not exactly call it nice, but it was sufficient for his needs. In was only a single room, a bit cluttered due to its size, containing everything that he needed, without even a wall to separate the bedroom from the rest of the living space. Because of that, Shofranka would not be able to live in another room. Instead, he asked his portress to lend him an extra bed from one of the rooms that were currently not rented. It will have to be enough.

The girl did not seem disheartened by the prospect at all. She circled around the room, touching every piece of furniture with amazement, as it if was at least a castle.

Javert glanced at his pocket watch. "I will have to get going."

The girl turned toward him. "Where to?"

"Work," he explained simply, putting his coat and top hat on the hanger and walking toward the wardrobe. He took out an old jacket and a cap. His work now will be getting information about the plans of revolution; it should be better if he looks different than usual, and definitely nothing like a police officer. He needed to blend in as much as he could.

"Can I go too?" the girl asked.

"No. Stay here until I return," Javert said, putting on the cap and tucking his hair under it. "I asked the portress to bring you a tub of water to wash yourself in and some food later. I will be back in a few hours," he threw on his jacket. He ignored Shofranka waving goodbye to him and walked outside.

The door shut, leaving the slightly confused child standing in the middle of this sparsely-furnished room.


	2. Accustoming

A few hours turned into nearly the entire day. Eavesdropping on a few potential revolutionary groups pulled Javert's mind completely away from the child. By the time he returned home, the sun was near setting.

Much to his surprise, he was greeted with silence when he walked in. Confused, he looked around the room. Was she asleep? He looked at both of the beds, but they were empty.

"Shofranka?" he called with a feeling of dread arising in his chest. Has the child ran away after all? How was he going to explain to his superior that he lost a potential source of information that he was supposed to watch over? On the first day?

He looked under the beds, in the wardrobe, under the desk, in the cupboards, but she was not hiding anywhere. He walked down to ask the portress if she knew anything. Apparently by the time she came in to take back the plate that she gave the child food on, she found the room empty. She assumed that the girl went to play outside.

Javert went back to his room. What should he do now? He had no clue on where Shofranka might have gone. The place where she lived before with her mother, perhaps? It was possible. He should check it before accepting that he had lost her.

He was halfway through putting on his coat when he heard the door open.

Shofranka slid into the room quietly, shutting the door behind her. Then her eyes wandered off to meet Javert's. "Oh, you're back already! Mum usually came back from work later," she greeted him with a smile.

Javert stared at her for a moment, frozen with his arm halfway through the sleeve. "What on earth do you think you're doing?!" he growled.

"Well, I was sitting in this room like you told me to and waited for the portress, but then I got so bored and I didn't know when you would be back, so I went outside for a while," she explained cheerfully.

"You were supposed to stay _inside_ ," he drawled out.

"But there is nothing to do in here, at all! And mum let me go outside whenever I wanted," she pouted.

"And I didn't," Javert pointed out.

"You have nothing to play with here," she complained with a groan.

"Oh, read a book or something, I don't care," he put his coat back on the hanger and walked toward his desk. He had no time for bickering with the child now; he wanted to use as much sunlight as there was left to write down his reports and notes before the dusk will force him to light a candle. He got to work without giving Shofranka even a glance.

He ignored how she walked up to the small table on the other side in the room and took a chair that was standing next to it, pulling it all the way to his desk, causing a loud screech when it was being dragged across the floor. He ignored how she placed it on the side of his desk and climbed on it, kneeling instead of sitting on it so that she could reach the top of the desk. He ignored her when she took a single clean sheet of paper from a pile that he stored there, and how she reached toward his inkpot to take his spare old quill. He promptly ignored how she started scribbling something on the paper, the quill making a painful noise as it scratched the paper, nearly tearing holes in it. Then she reached out to dip it in the ink again, and did it so clumsily that he had to catch the inkpot to avoid the desk being flooded with ink; some black drops fell onto his hand.

"Just _what_ are you doing?!" he almost shouted, moving the inkpot away.

"Teaching myself letters so that I can read your stupid books!" Shofranka cried back with accusation; her voice cracked a bit when she stabbed the paper with the quill again. She angrily rubbed the tears off her cheeks with her other hand, smearing ink all around her face.

Javert remained still for a second, then sighed. Right, of course. She could not read. When would she even learn that? She probably never went to school or got any sort of formal education. Not to mention that she was still quite young for that. He did not consider that. Could he read when he was her age? No, he remembered. He was about that age when he was separated from his mother. He had not started learning until a while later, when he started performing some small tasks for the guards.

A loud sniffle brought him back to reality. He stared at the ink that dripped onto his half-written report. Why did this child make him reminiscent his past so easily? She was not him, she was _nothing_ like him.

With irritation, he put aside the stained sheet of paper and took a clean one to start his report anew.

Every few seconds he was knocked out of his focus by a loud sniffle or the ungodly sound of his spare quill being nearly broken on the surface of the paper. After a while of this he stopped writing with exasperation and turned toward the child.

At this point, she was truly a miserable sight. Her face was covered in tears mixed with ink, making her look like she let a blind man give her make up. The piece of paper that she took was not only covered in uneven unreadable scribbles, but also wet with teardrops and torn in a few places. Still, she continued stubbornly stabbing it with the quill with an expression of utmost focus despite her tears, putting down some unidentified shapes.

Sighing, Javert got up and walked toward the bucket of water stored in his room. He soaked a piece of cloth in it and walked back to the desk.

"Here," he said, handing the cloth to Shofranka. "Clean your face. You could raise the dead with this look."

She complied, taking the cloth and burying her face in it.

While she was busy rubbing off the ink, Javert examined the messy glyphs that she drew on this page. He squinted; he could make out a few that looked like familiar letters. He glanced back at his report and realized what were these shapes - she was copying his writing from what she could see.

It must have been the least legible copy of any writing that he has ever seen. "That's not even close," he commented.

"Well, excu-u-use me," she mumbled from behind the cloth.

Javert sat back down and reached for another piece of paper. He put down a single sign on it. "Here," he referred to Shofranka, who just put down the wet cloth. "This is the grand letter J. I suppose your name starts with it. Mine does too. And here's the minor J," he added another sign. "Practice these and be quiet. Oh, and stop torturing my quill. You don't have to stab through the paper while writing."

The girl watched the paper with wonder when Javert got up to put away the wet cloth, cleaning his own hands in the meantime. By the time he returned to the desk, Shofranka was already busy carefully copying the letter.

It kept her from disturbing his work, but he was not planning to teach her to read or write. It was not his job. Perhaps she will get educated wherever she will be placed when a free space will be found. Because, despite the girl's hopes, she will not be going back to her mother anytime soon. With the amount of robberies and theft that her gang was responsible for, Javert suspected that she will spend long years in prison, if not a lifetime. Though he was not about to inform the child of that.

Yes, Shofranka was most likely to spend the next decade in some orphanage or a monastery. It was not him who was responsible for her education. But at this rate, he would need many more letters to be able to survive with her until all is settled. Working on reports was hard enough for him even without the additional noise.

He looked at the girl, scribbling in full focus. As if this situation has not been ridiculous enough already.

He shook his head and returned to the reports.

Not long after he lit the candle he noticed that Shofranka started dozing off while writing, her head leaning toward the paper then jerking up again every once in a while.

"Go to sleep," he commanded without pausing his own writing.

"Don't wanna," she mumbled, finishing off with a yawn.

"Sure. Go anyway. And wash your hands."

Groaning, she got up and stumbled across the room.

Javert kept hearing various sounds of movement from behind his back for a minute or two before silence fell. He looked back over his shoulder. The girl was lying still, tucked into a ball of blanket on a bed. His bed, he noticed bitterly. Well, he supposed that he never stated clearly which one belonged to him. He returned to work with resignation; he would just sleep on the borrowed one.

That's what he did a few hours later, after he had written all that he was meaning to write clearly enough to hand it in.

He woke up early in the morning and got up right away to get ready, nearly forgetting about the other occupant of his room. It wasn't until he was already dressed up and busy tying his hair when he heard a voice behind his back.

"I'm hungry," Shofranka complained as she untangled herself from the bed sheet.

Right. He did not have a habit of getting a breakfast before heading off; he would only buy something on in his way to work sometimes.

He dug out a few sous from the pocket of his coat. "Go outside and turn right, there is a bakery nearby," he instructed, handing her the coins.

Shofranka gasped. "So I can go outside?"

That made him wonder if it is a good idea. Perhaps he should buy something and bring it here instead, but he has neither the time nor the patience for it. "Don't even try to wander off anywhere further. I expect to see you here by the time I get back today."

She nodded vigorously. "Goodbye!" she shouted as he grabbed his jacket and cap and walked out.

He returned home late again. When he reached the door, he could hear a quiet humming from inside. It meant that the girl was in the room, but it somehow make him disturbed about what was going on inside.

When he opened the door, Shofranka's head jerked up. "You're back! Hello!" she greeted him cheerfully.

Javert looked around with a certain degree of terror. The girl was sitting on the floor with his inkpot and quills, as well as a few sheets of paper. A few of the drawers of his desk have been partly open. There were some other papers laying around, as well as two spools of thread.

" _What is this?_ " he hissed.

"Oh! You weren't coming so I decided that I should practice letters! Look!" she picked up one of the sheets and leapt up to him.

The page was entirely covered with the word 'Javert', though sometimes it looked more like 'Jolvert' or 'Javevt', written messily over and over in uneven columns, accompanied by an ungodly amount of inkblots and smudges.

"I've found this word at the end of some papers in your desk," Shofranka explained proudly. "And it starts with this letter that I know, so I figured out that it must be your name! Right? Is it?"

"Papers in my desk," Javert repeated gravely.

"Yes, I found them while I was looking for some thread! I've torn my clothes a lot lately, so I wanted to patch it up! See?" she stretched the fabric of her skirt to reveal a lump of stitches, with white thread standing out on the background of the darker cloth, pulling sides of what has previously been a torn hole together unevenly, causing the skirt to crumple a bit.

Javert barely glanced at it. He fought back the need to throw the child out of the window. "Why are you poking around in my desk?!" he snapped at her.

The smile vanished from her face. "I shouldn't do that?"

"No- obviously not!" he strode toward the mess on the desk. "What even gave you the idea that you _can_?!" he looked at his drawers. The files from his cases, all of his documents, he even kept a gun here! But this one was in a locked drawer, he remembered with some relief; she couldn't have reached it. He turned around to face the child. "Why-" he stopped.

Shofranka has crumpled up her sheet of paper and now she was standing in the middle of the room, beginning to shake, with a bowed head and tears sliding down on her nose. And she should not, but she reminded him very much of a not just her size who lived in the distant past, who also did not know what he did wrong, who only wished that he would get an explanation and not just a punishment and who knew that it was not going to happen so he just hid in a corner and-

But he deserved that, he reminded himself.

But now he was on the other side of the situation.

And did she? Did she deserve that?

"I'm sorry, I didn't-" Shofranka mumbled between the sobs.

No, he decided. She did not.

How could she have known? It was no malice on her part, he just never told her what she can or cannot do in here. She was just a child, she honestly did not know any better, she had no way of knowing. And no harm was done - he kept everything important in the locked drawers for which she did not have the key. The only law that she had broken was an unspoken one that he wrongly assumed her to know.

Perhaps he had overreacted.

He took a deep breath to calm himself down. "It's fine. Just don't do it again."

He started collecting the papers; he ignored the wide-open wet eyes, which started following him when the sobbing ceased.

"Anyway, a few rules. Do not open any of the drawers or the wardrobe. That bed you slept on - it's mine. Yours is the other one. Try not to break anything in the room, obviously. Don't play with sharp objects or my papers. Don't make too much noise. Don't disturb me while I'm working. And-" he paused. "I can't think of anything more right now. But, understood?"

Shofranka kept nodding during the whole lecture, her face slowly drying to its normal state. "Aye!" she answered with a grin. "What about going outside?"

He pondered upon this for a moment. He had to admit that she was not a child that has never seen a street in a way other than from a window from a carriage; on the contrary, she has probably spent a big part of her life there. Maybe keeping her inside was unnecessary caution. She knew how to survive out there and she was not about to run away either. Beside, at this rate not letting her go outside would result in the ruin of his apartment. "Fine. But be back before sundown if you want to eat."

Next day, Javert stopped on his way home to buy some cheaper paper and a pencil. The sheer amount of wasted pages and ink splatters that he saw yesterday were enough to convince him that it was a necessary purchase to save his budget. The money that he got to support the child was not much more than what was required to feed her, but as long as it kept her quiet and relatively non-destructive, he would agree to spend some of his own pay on it.

Much to his confusion, Shofranka looked like he had offered her a fortune in gold. She started keeping her own paper in a separate pile in the corner of his desk and carried the pencil in her pocket everywhere she went.

From this point on, Javert continued with his life more or less undisturbed by the presence of the child. He would leave her a few sous for breakfast in the morning, then leave for work. When he returned, he would either find Shofranka practicing her writing or still absent, but she would always come back soon after him.

The times in which his work took place, now that it was mostly based on learning about the revolutionary movements and late shifts were given to other officers, usually allowed him to come home to eat some late supper. Having to feed the child forced him into eating it regularly every day, something that was not in his habit, though sometimes he would return late to find the cold food waiting for him at the table. The portress has been notified to make it daily rather than when he informed her beforehand to do so, like he did usually.

Most evenings he would sit down to write, and at the same time Shofranka would pull up the second chair to his desk and start scribbling letters with her pencil. Every time she would start getting impatient, he put another letter on her paper with a short explanation.

It was not as hard as he thought it would be. Most of the time, he would barely notice the child. She did not talk as much as he expected her to. He quickly got used to her surprisingly quiet presence; it did not bother him much.

One day, after about two weeks of such life, Javert returned home and was immediately hit with the sensation that something was wrong. It was quiet, and he would normally assume that Shofranka was still outside, but some barely audible murmur betrayed someone's presence in the room.

He put his coat on the hanger as he entered the room with caution. "Shofranka?" he asked aloud. There was no possibility for anyone else to be in the room. But he got no answer; was it just his imagination?

It was not until he walked toward the desk that he noticed her. She was sitting under it, close to the wall, with her knees pulled to her chest. She was gazing at something in front of her. Javert frowned; she did not seem to even notice his presence.

He looked at the girl with a raised eyebrow. "What are you doing there?" he asked.

Still, no sort of response came, she just squeezed her eyes shut and gripped her knees tighter.

Javert crouched next to the desk, increasingly disturbed with her unusual behaviour. Did she get injured and refused to say it? Did children often behave like that? He could not tell.

He put a hand on her shoulder, unsure of what to do. "Hey," he said simply, trying to get her attention.

Her head jerked up when he touched her shoulder and her face turned immediately toward Javert. She stared at him with wide eyes, looking slightly confused and startled, as if she has just been woken up. After a moment, she breathed in sharply and her eyes filled with tears. Still sitting under the desk, she started sobbing uncontrollably.

Javert retrieved his hand quickly and stared at her, dumbfounded. Did he do something wrong just now? He had even less idea of what he should do.

The girl beat him to it, crawling from under the desk and clinging to him, burying her face in the fabric of his coat.

He sat down on the floor as the child's hands wrapped around him and she wept helplessly into his shoulder. He was less than prepared to deal with that sort of situation. He sat stiffly, waiting for the girl to calm down.

"What's wrong?" he asked when her sobs have died down enough to allow her to speak.

"I-" she sniffed loudly, "I went to see the executions with- with some boys I've met outside but-" she was interrupted by her own sob, "but there was- I saw- they-" she stopped as she broke into crying again.

Javert rubbed her back with an undefined feeling of dread rising in his chest. He predicted the girl's next words.

"My mum-" she sobbed into his coat. "My mum was there! I saw her! And they- they-" she started crying ununderstandably.

Javert needed no further clarification. So the girl's mother was sentenced for death. It did not seem like a very probable option when he was leaving the case, but with no doubt it was what happened.

And Shofranka just happened to see the execution.

He had less than no idea how to deal with this situation.

It was all good, he wanted to say. Her mother had been a criminal, and her offenses must have been more serious than what she had been suspected of by the time he dropped from her case. She got what she deserved, a just punishment. Seeing this should dissuade others from stepping on the same road.

Others - like that child who was currently crying her face off into his coat?

What good could come from that?

That was not what she saw, he realized. Not a punishment for crimes, not a warning. She saw her only guardian being killed and she did not know the reason for it. She was not crying after a criminal, she was crying after her mother.

Still, Javert could not sympathise with it. If he had found himself in this situation, would he react similarly? No, he thought, he would not mourn. Did she not know that her mother was a bad person, a crook?

He did not understand the reason for her crying. Was she afraid of being an orphan? Did the violence scare her?

He patted her back lightly in an attempt to calm her down.

Despite not understanding, he could not stop the sensation that this was deeply wrong. No, this was not supposed to happen, she should have not seen what she had seen. He should have prevented it, somehow.

He waited patiently as she continued weeping. He had no idea how to calm her down, so he just waited until she would do it by herself.

It took a long time, but after a while she went quiet, sitting in the floor with her head resting on his leg. He observed her for a moment. He concluded that she had tired herself out - she was asleep.

He stood up carefully, lifting her up, and placed her on the bed. He took a step back, running his fingers through his whiskers nervously. After a moment of consideration, he covered her with a blanket, then with a shake of his head he sat at the desk.

He tried to focus on the paperwork, but his thoughts seemed to have been drifting apart, letters and signs dancing before his eyes without forking any comprehensible words. He found himself looking over his shoulder at the sleeping figure only not to notice any slightest change. There was a feeling in his chest that he was not used to - he hesitantly identified it as guilty. He could not tell what exactly he was feeling guilty for, but he held the blurred idea that it was in a way his fault.

Guilt - but also pity. This one was stranger. Throughout years of his duty in the police he had never once pitied any of the people that he came to be in contact with one way or another. No orphan, widow or any sort of a wretch had ever caused him to feel even slightly bad for them. Yet, strangely enough, he found that he did feel some sort of pity for that child. That was... unrequired. Still, he could not be rid of that uncomfortable sensation that appeared every time when he looked back at her, with her hands now clutching the blanket as if it was the only thing holding her down to earth.

He could not sympathise with her reaction, but again she brought back memories from his own past. He was not an eyewitness to his parent's execution, but he went through it. He felt no grief then nor later. He had no doubt that his father had deserved it. He was just like all of the other galley slaves - no, even worse. He had killed a man. He had attempted to escape from prison, and in doing so he managed to wound one of the guards. Mortally wound - the young man passed away soon after it.

His father was a criminal of the worst sort, he concluded then. He deserved everything that fell upon him, including the blade of the guillotine. Javert had never shed a single year for him - not then, when he was a young guard beginning at his job, nor ever later.

If the girl's mother came to be sentenced to the same punishment, she had to be equally bad. Despite this, his reaction then and Shofranka's now could not be more different.

He was brought back to reality by the ink dripping from the tip of his quill onto the paper. He scolded himself mentally. He could not be putting away his duties to ponder upon his memories or the child; especially not now, when he could practically sense the upcoming rebellion of the people as vividly as if it was announced by the sound of boots marching on the pavements and blowing trumpets. No, he could not afford to have anything disturb him now - not his past, not Shofranka, nothing. He had wasted enough time today.

The girl was still asleep when he finished his writing and retired to bed. He behaved silently, not wanting to wake her up, though it seemed unnecessary - she seemed to be in such a deep slumber that only slight rising of her chest indicated that she was still alive.

After what must have been a few hours since he had fallen asleep, he has been awakened by a sudden loud sound. He shot up in bed, startled, looking around in slight panic. It took him a moment to get his head around what was happening.

Shafranka was also sitting up in her bed, with the covers pressed tightly to her chest, sobbing violently. He realized that the sound that jolted him awake was her screaming.

He got out of bed and walked up to her. She twitched when he put his hand on her shoulder. Then she reached out and grabbed his arm, clinging to it while still sobbing.

Javert sat down on the bed next to her. He patted her back lightly. The sobbing seemed to have died down a bit, though she was still nowhere near calming down. He leaned back against the wall and allowed the child to cry into his sleeve.

He woke up in the morning in the same position. Shofranka was curled up in the bed, with her head on his lap; she was asleep, though her face still looked red and swollen.

He tore his back away from the wall and nearly swore loudly when his spine protested with a throb of pain. This was certainly not a good way to spend the night.

He carefully moved the girl away into the bed and stood up. She was not awakened by this, though her fists closed tightly on the cover. He readied himself of the day, still not noticing any signs of life from the girl. She would usually be awake before he left, but it seemed like today would be an exception.

He took a watch out of his pocket and glanced at its face. It was still quite early. He decided that he might go out to buy something for breakfast and bring it here. He did not normally do it, but he doubted whether Shofranka will be in a state to go outside this morning.

He threw on his coat and went outside. Less than half an hour later, he was back to discover that the girl was still asleep. He left the bag with food on the table, changed into workman's clothes and left.

He returned home slightly earlier than usual - he just did not seem to find as many tasks for himself as he normally did. He was greeted by absolute silence in his apartment. He looked around, but he realized that Shofranka was there. She was sitting on her bed with the covers scrambled around her. Her eyes were locked on some undefined point in front of her as she kept slowly rotating her pencil in her hand.

Javert noticed the untouched bag at the table. He sighed. "You didn't eat breakfast?" he asked while taking off his jacket. No response came.

Faced with the lack of reaction, Javert grabbed the bag and a knife and walked across the room, sitting down on the bed next to her. "You still have to eat, you know," he said in a matter-of-fact voice. Still not receiving any reply, he took a bread roll out of the bag and cut it in half, promptly ignoring the crumbs falling onto the bed. He put some cheese in it and handed it to the girl. "Here," he said, but she still didn't move.

"I'm not hungry," she mumbled.

"Still, you should eat," Javert said as he pushed the bread roll into her hands.

She started chewing on it and Javert nodded with approval. He got up and walked toward his desk to continue with his usual duties.

Something felt out of place when he started writing. After a few minutes he realized what it was. "You're not practising writing today?" he asked as he turned his head to look at Shofranka.

"No," she replied simply while sweeping the crumbs off the bed and her clothes.

"Why not?"

"I don't want to."

Javert shrugged and returned to writing, feeling the girl's gaze on his back.

A while later, she stirred. "Why did mom die?" she asked.

Javert twitched at the question. Her voice left a strange impression on him - she did not even sound sad as much as just tired, and, despite the high pitch, much older than she was. "Because she broke the law," he replied plainly.

"A lot of people break the law. And they don't die."

"She must have done something especially bad," Javert explained. "And she was pronounced a danger to the society."

"She is not!" Shofranka protested, leaping off the bed. "They are wrong! Mum is not dangerous- _was_. Was not dangerous," she corrected herself quietly, as if testing out the words. She liked at the pencil clutched tightly in her fist and blinked with confusion. Silently, she sat back on the bed.

Javert, who observed this from over his shoulder, said nothing.

She remained quiet after that, not doing anything other than fiddling with the pencil she was holding. Hours later, when Javert decided that he has done enough for today, she was still in that position.

"Shouldn't you be sleeping?" he asked.

She raised her eyes to him with a hopeful expression on her face. "Is mum in heaven now?"

"She-" he started, but cut of at once. _She was a criminal_ , he wanted to say. _Criminals don't go to heaven_. Somehow, he could not force himself to say that aloud. "I don't know where she is," he answered truthfully.

Shofranka's expression seemed to have dimmed down. "I want to go where mum is," she said with some melancholy.

"Go to sleep," Javert replied dryly.

Shofranka nodded in agreement and laid down, wrapping herself in the blanket and steering as the ceiling with wide eyes.

At night, Javert was woken up by the sound of quiet footsteps wandering around the room. He decided to let her be.

In the morning, he woke up to the child sleeping on the side of his bed, with one hand clutching the fabric of his sleeve. He wrestled his hand free without making her wake up and like the day before, he left to buy some breakfast.

This time when he came back, the girl was awake and observed him silently as he entered the apartment.

He handed her the bag that he brought with him. "Here, breakfast."

She accepted the bag without a comment and kept following him with her eyes.

"Eat it this time, would you?" Javert added as he changed into his jacket.

"Are you leaving for work?" Shofranka asked.

"Yes, obviously," he replied with raised eyebrows.

"Do you have to?" she asked in a bit higher pitch.

Javert turned to her in confusion. "Yes. What is it about?"

"I don't like sitting here alone all day," Shofranka mumbled.

"Aren't you going outside?"

She glanced fearfully at the window and shook her head rapidly.

"Why not?" Javert asked, but she just shook her head once more. "Well, I have to go. If you're not going outside, you will have to sit here."

Shofranka seemed close to tears when he took his leave.


	3. Shadows

The situation in the streets was growing dangerously tense. Nearly every day he sent notes to the station house reporting names and addresses of people that he suspected or was sure that they were engaged in producing or trading weapons. He could see people whispering in the corners, passing pieces of paper or packages between themselves, meeting in more or less of a secret, not always discreetly preparing for something. It was as clear to him as in the streets themselves were stirring under his feet - the day of the rebellion was coming inevitably and no amount of action that the police took seemed to halt its coming.

He hardly had time to pay attention to the child. He stayed out in the streets for longer than his formal duty required of him, simply because he deemed it important for the preparations to the upcoming events. He spent nearly all of the remaining part of the day reporting on his work to his authorities, writing down notes for himself and reading over or rewriting the ones that he had written before.

Shofranka kept silent and still, and while it should be relieving, he found it to be extremely unnerving. She ceased to practice writing or go outside. Returning from duty, he would always find her hunched in her bed, more of a ghost than a child. She observed him motionlessly, rarely ever speaking. As irritating as some of her previous actions were to him, lack of them turned out to be even more uncomfortable when he constantly felt himself being observed by her wide eyes.

After a few days of this the constant feeling of eyes following his every move made him turn around. "Have you given up on writing entirely?" he asked the girl who jumped up at the sudden question.

She blinked as if not comprehending the question for a moment, then shrugged.

"You will go out of practice of you keep it up."

Again he received the reply of an indifferent shrug.

He stared at her lack of reaction with a frown. "Well, take your chair," he said after a moment. "It's time for a test."

Her head jerked up a bit with confusion. "A test?" she repeated.

"Yes, exactly. That's what happens at schools. You learn something, then you take a test to see if you learned it properly."

She reluctantly stood up from the bed. "And if I didn't?"

"It would mean that you should study more," Javert replied. "So?"

Shofranka pulled the chair from the other end of the room with a horrendous screech of its legs on the wooden floor, and then seated herself at the side of the desk, gripping her pencil in her hand.

Javert handed her a sheet of paper. He wondered for a moment if they had gone through the entire alphabet. Some letters might still be missing for her. He decided to ignore it for now. "Try to write your name," he instructed.

He watched briefly as she put down the letter J with a shaky hand, then returned to his work. As much as he would not admit that, it was relieving to see her show some signs of life other than just observing him silently. He felt much more at ease with the scrapping of pencil against the paper and the creaking of the chair when she shifted on it to get a better view of her writing than with the unnatural silence that forced him to turn around every so often to see if she was still there.

It took her ridiculously long to put down these few letters. "Done," she announced finally, giving a small nod to the piece of paper as she slid it toward Javert.

Javert took a look at the uneven writing. Surprisingly enough, the letters have been right - except the F and N were in mirror writing, K was missing the upper line, making it look more like an upside down Y, and the A's might have as well been E's or O's.

"Not bad," Javert commented, squinting slightly. "Just-" he put down the letters that she wrote wrong- "this is how these should look like."

Shofranka nodded, staring intently at the piece of paper.

"Again, perhaps? Write- uh," he looked around, "Paris," he decided, returning to his documents once more.

After a few minutes he looked back at her, disturbed by the lack of response. No new letters were written on the page, just some wet stains. Shofranka was staring down at the page in silence, not seeming to notice that once in a while a teardrop rolled down her nose to land on the paper.

Javert looked at this strange statue of grief over a piece of paper with puzzlement. "What is it this time?"

"I don't know this letter," she mumbled quietly.

"Oh, please," Javert replied, hearing a single sob. "You can't start crying every time you don't know something! You can simply ask." He took the piece of paper and sore down the letter. "It's P. Like R, just without the lower line," he handed her back the paper. "You know the next ones, right?" he asked without waiting for answer as he turned back to work on the documents.

Just moments later the girl tugged at his sleeve to present the word 'Pari' written down messily.

"It ends with an S," he pointed out, but received a blank stare in response. "It's the curvy one," he sighed.

Shofranka reached out and added an S to the end of the word, then looked at Javert awaitingly.

"Yes," he confirmed.

Shofranka's eyes rested on the piece of paper. "I failed the test," she muttered with clear disappointment.

"It's not that tragic," Javert shrugged. "Perhaps you should return to practicing. What about reading?" he wondered suddenly. He had never made her read anything. Did children normally learn reading before writing? He did not know.

He handed her a newspaper that was lying at the side of his desk. "Pick some article and read it. Aloud."

Shofranka took the newspaper and scanned it with focus, picking a piece of text. Then she started reading - though she stuttered, she spelled out the words surprisingly quickly.

Javert immediately noticed that something was wrong - though she read regular words, together they made no sense. He could barely grasp the topic of the article. He examined the girl, who with a pale face seemed to stumble over the letters, stuttering but saying the words with confidence. "Wait, stop," he said, resulting in the girl falling silent mid-word. "It's not what is written there, is it?"

She paled a bit more and crumpled the newspaper in her hands nervously.

Javert sighed with exasperation. "Are you guessing the words instead of reading?"

Her face now turned red.

Javert rolled his eyes. "It's pointless. Try reading it slowly, but properly. It makes no sense otherwise."

She started doing as she was told, but it ended quickly when Javert realized that she was unable to get through any longer words. Instead, he pointed her at a few simpler words that he spotted on the page. After she had read these with a few mistakes, he instructed her to practise writing instead and let him finish his work for the day.

Shofranka started behaving slightly less unnerving from that point on. She still refused to leave the apartment, but now when Javert came back there were usually at least a few letters scribbled on a sheet of paper. She also returned to the habit of joining him at the desk when he was working, though she often lost focus and ended up staring into space instead of writing. And, much to Javert's relief, she no longer asked questions concerning her mother.

Not that he had much time to be concerned about this. The situation in Paris continued to worsen - then one day he learned about the death of general Lamarque. The unrest has been great since he had fallen ill, now the city sensed to have been entering the eye of the hurricane.

He could bet that the funeral of the general would not go calmly. There have been no major riots when he passed away, but the following days felt so much like the quiet before the storm that he could sense the incoming thunder. He observed increased activity in the worker and student groups that he had been keeping an eye on - he could see messengers passing around notes and packages, though the groups guarded their secrecy more than ever before. He did overhear the word "funeral" a few times as well. Though he learned no details of their plans, it was clear that they were going to strike on that day.

He personally asked to be assigned to that case. Nobody in the police force was eager to stop him or join him and go there.

He came home with a rifle provided by the police force. As much as he despised working as a spy, he was planning to blend in with the crowd shall the riots start.

He had to tell Shofranka multiple times not to fiddle with the rifle, then ended up locking it in the wardrobe when it turned out to be ineffective.

Saying that he was calm about what was about to come would be a lie. Whatever will unfold on the day of the funeral, it presented a reasonable chance of him getting killed in progress - bigger than that of his regular day at work, that is. But he always thought that he would die doing his duty, and he was already old. He decided that he did not mind the possibility much.

Considering his death, there was only one major problem that he would leave behind, and that was Shofranka who still remained under his care. Knowing that, he took his time on the days before the funeral to fix this issue. He messaged all places he could think of, orphanages and so on, about the possibility of thanking in another child. Much to his relief, he got a positive reply from one of them - some monastery on the outskirts of Paris. They asked for a quote big sum of money in exchange for raising the child, but were able to do it.

He supposed that he would not miss his savings after his death. If he was responsible for Shofranka, he might as well use them to make her one gamin less. So he decided to arrange for her to be sent there in case of his death.

After days of anxiety, on the day of the funeral he felt surprisingly calm. Everything seemed perfectly predictable. He attended the funeral and, just like he expected, it gave a root to a full-blown armed riot. The coffin with general's body has been abducted by a group of students. He waited to see no more - he rushed back to his apartment for some final preparations.

"You're back so soon!" Shofranka exclaimed when he entered.

"Only for a moment," he explained. "I'm going back to work, I only came to take a few things," he said as he opened the wardrobe.

He took out the rifle, which he preferred not to bring to the funeral, and pondered for a moment. Glancing at his work jacket, he decided that he should wear something that he had not been seen in lately, just in case the clothing could make someone recognise him.

He took out the contents of his pockets and put them on his desk, then hung the jacket back in the wardrobe and took out another one, even older.

With a deep sigh, he decided that it was high time he tells Shofranka about what may happen to her after today. He promptly avoided telling anything earlier, unwilling to be faced with her reaction. But now it might be the last time he sees her.

Without turning around to look at her, he started: "If anything should happen today-"

To his surprise, he was interrupted by the girl's voice spelling out letters slowly in a gravely tone: "I...N...S...P..." she paused.

He turned to her with confusion and some instinctive feeling of dread.

She was standing next to his desk, clutching something in her hands, gazing at it with a pale face. He froze when he recognised it - his police badge that he put down there just moments ago.

" _Inspecteur_ ," she said blankly when she finally managed to decipher the word. "Javert _, inspecteur de police_ ," she read out, looking at the paper locked between two pieces of glass with an expressionless face. She rotated it between her fingers, still not taking her eyes off it. "I know these," she said in an absent voice.

Javert observed silently, something stopping him from moving.

Shofranka turned her head to him. "You are one of them," she said not with anger or accusation, but rather with a sort of disbelief.

"Give it back," Javert managed to say.

Shofranka blinked a few times, as if waking up from a dream. "You-" she started, but cut off. She inhaled air sharply as the badge slid from her hands and landed on the floor with a clink. Not saying anything more, she took off toward the door, pushed it open and ran outside.

"Wait-" Javert took a step toward the door, but stopped when he heard a gunshot sound in the distance. He had no time. He could not start running after the child now, when the revolution was unfolding, and when he would most likely not find her anyway. No, he had to trust that she will stay away from where the gunshots came from and carry on with his duty. She was not a child born with a silver spoon, she knew how to manage by herself.

Not lingering any longer, he threw on the jacket that he was holding and placed his belongings in its pockets. He snatched the badge off the floor and dropped it into his pocket without looking at it. He reached for the rifle and paused, looking at the box of ammunition that still laid inside the wardrobe. For a few seconds, he observed it with uncertainty. Then he shut the wardrobe closed. No, he would not shot to anyone, be it a soldier or a revolutionary.

He put the cap on his head and rushed toward the door, but froze with his hand on the handle. He might not return here anymore. There was one more thing he should do.

He walked back to the desk, carefully putting the rifle away. He dipped a quill in ink and put down a few sentences on a piece of paper. He folded it like a letter, and in handwriting as clear and readable as he could manage he wrote Shofranka's name on it.

He did not know if she would come back here to see the letter, or if she would be bothered to ask someone to read it for her if she could not. He supposed that she hated him now. Still, chances were she will return when she gets hungry or cold. If she did, she should know what he had planned, where she was to live after he was gone if not the streets. He had asked the portress to help Shofranka get there, but now he explained it to her as well, described the place and explained where she would find the savings that he had in the apartment that she should take.

Given that she will return. Somehow, he felt less certain of that with each passing minute.

He picked up the rifle and turned toward the door, but froze again. Something was still missing.

He stared blankly at the letter. Then he unfolded it and dipped the quill once more.

He switched languages for that part - while the previous part of the letter was in French, he wrote in Romani now. He had no idea how to write it - he had never seen this language in writing. He ended up writing it more or less so that when read out with French pronunciation it would be at least understandable, as strange as it looked.

What he wrote was perhaps not exactly an apology, but more of an explanation. It still felt strange - apologizing to a child - but he supposed that there would be no shame in it - he will probably be dead by the time she reads it, and nobody else should understand. So he explained it: why she was here, how he could not have told her that he worked for the police and where he was going now, just so that she knows why it was a letter telling it and not him in person.

 _I apologise_ , he ended the letter when he nearly ran out of space. Not exactly for hiding the truth, for he did not see what better he could have done, but for the entire situation. He was far from the best caretaker for a child, not only because of the matter of his job, he knew. It seemed like she deserved an apology from this whole world which has thrown her into this situation, so at least he could say it.

He folded the letter again, picked up the rifle and left, this time not looking back.

To say that his task has not gone as planned would be an understatement. He had been uncovered embarrassingly quickly, soon after the barricades have been built. He would not call it a surprise, though. He was hardly suited for the job of a spy.

Now all he could do was watch the revolutionaries from the perspective of the pillar in the inn, tied too tightly to it to move. He accepted it with some resignation; it was not the worst possible way to die. He only wished that they would save him the waiting.

He could see the entrance from this spot, giving him a view of at least part of the events behind the barricade. He was no wiser thanks to it - it mostly consisted of people running here and there in haste. He could tell more of the situation by the sound. The frequency of gunshots and screams of the wounded did not predict a longer or brighter future for the barricade than he had judged it to have. At least it meant that he would not have to stand here for days.

At one point the revolutionaries carried the body of an old man inside, one that Javert did not know, and laid him on the table next to Javert's pillar. So the barricade had claimed its first victim.

Javert barely paid any attention to it, or to the threats that one of the revolutionaries shot at him at this occasion. He felt strangely relaxed at the prospect of upcoming death.

His eyes followed the exiting men. Immediately, his mind jolted awake at what he saw beyond the door.

Though the distance did not allow him to see clearly, he was certain that he saw a very familiar small figure, copper skin and hair that barely had time to grow out after being cut off completely. Though she was wearing different clothes that she got God knows where, he could tell that he saw Shofranka.

She was looking back at him, though he could not make out her expression at this distance. After a moment, she turned away and quickly disappeared from his field of vision.

He blinked with disbelief. Was it a hallucination? Did someone hit him over the head while tying him up?

Before he could consider the idea, Shofranka in the flesh ran into the inn. She trotted to the back, grabbed a handful of bandages and left, keeping her eyes locked on the ground all of the time, avoiding looking in the direction of the pillar.

Javert observed it wordlessly, astonished. No, she was as real as any of these rioters. He could not possibly be imagining that. This child was actually at the barricade.

The realization felt like a cannonball striking him. _She was at the barricade_. While he was hoping that she would stay away from the gunshots, she did the exact opposite and packed herself into the very heart of the conflict.

Given the situation here, she might have as well personally shot herself. That would give her similar chances of surviving.

No, he corrected himself. _He_ might have as well shot her. He had caused her to go outside during the riots, even if not intentionally.

He had to make her leave somehow, before the barricade falls. The soldiers would not mind the age, and neither will the accidents - everyone behind the barricade will either die, or in the best case get arrested.

Suddenly, being tied up and forced to wait for death became a significant problem.

He was still trying to think of a way to do something, _anything_ , when the revolutionary who acted as the leader of the lot approached him.

"Do you want anything?" he asked dryly.

Javert looked back at him with narrowed eyes, briefly considering his options. "Yes, actually. I need you to stop keeping children at the barricade," he bearly growled. "Everyone here is going to die and you decide to play nursemaids and have children running around?! Is it your plan to drag down as many as you can with you?!" he instinctively wanted to emphasise the words with a gesture, but instead he scowled when the rope burned his skin when he moved his arm.

"I do not control who decides to come here," the light-haired man replied with no readable expression on his face. "I was asking for requests concerning your person."

"My request is to send any children away from here," Javert hissed out.

"If that concerns you, the one who had revealed your identity left. The other one seems to have disappeared when we were looking for him a while ago. He probably left as well, and I have no men not time to spare to look for missing children," he explained coldly, staring stubbornly into Javert's eyes. "That is all." Having said that, he turned away and strode toward the exit.

Javert followed him with his eyes, but instead they locked at the figure standing in the doorway, whom he did not notice entering.

Perhaps he should have been surprised, but it seemed like just the right time and place for Jean Valjean to appear. Of course he was still alive and residing in Paris, Javert's instinct had been telling it to him for years, even when he was forced to put his search to a halt. And though Valjean never seemed invested in political movements, not even as the mayor, the picture of a criminal and that of a revolutionary in Javert's head fit together perfectly. His presence here to witness Javert's death seemed almost natural.

"Of course," Javert just snarled audibly, making the guard glance at him with confusion.

He could not tell if Valjean heard it, but he turned away and left the building.

With an angry reluctance, Javert turned his thoughts away from the white-haired man. That boy said that the other child has disappeared from the barricade - he could only hope that it was Shofranka that he was talking about; he saw no other children here beside her and that street urchin. Has she ran away because she saw him? Whatever the reason was, hopefully she was far away from here.

He caught no more glimpses of either Shofranka or Valjean. Still, every time a wounded or dead revolutionary was carried inside the inn, he found himself looking at them nervously to make sure that they are not a small, short-haired child.

He was angry at himself for being so bothered by it but he could not help it. He has not been enduring the child's presence at his house for the past weeks just to have her recklessly throw her life away in a revolution that she did not even understand.

His heart skipped a beat when he saw a body smaller than others being carried inside. It took him a second to tell that it definitely was not Shofranka - the boy was much taller than her, his hair more red in shade and longer, his skin paler. He recognised the gamin who supposedly revealed his identity earlier, now stiff and silent with a gaping red wound in his chest. He could observe it clearly as they laid the boy down on the table next to him.

" _Left the barricade?_ " he sneered at the blond revolutionary who had talked to him earlier and who was among these who entered with the body. No reply came, the young man's face was as stern as ever.

He hoped that Shofranka left the barricade more effectively than that boy, considering how he still did not see her anywhere. He returned to simply observing the events, trying to ignore the body laying by his side.

For a long while, the inn and the space outside of it seemed eerily calm despite the flying bullets, like a park on a Sunday afternoon rather than a barricade. People wandered around, chatting and killing time rather than others. It unnerved Javert, although he took care not to show it. He was less than sure that Shofranka was away from here, and it continued to bother him. He would rather have the revolutionaries execute him already just to be over the waiting and worrying.

At some point the situation changed, though he could not tell why. Suddenly, the inn was filled with rush as people carried stones inside, barricading the windows and entrances with them. He assumed that it was a sign that the end was coming - if they were locking the inn, it meant that the barricade would probably fall soon. They would not be able to endure inside the inn for long either, it was far from a fortress.

His suspicions were confirmed when the leader remembered about him, commanding the last man to leave the building to shoot him. He took in the news with a stoic approach; at least he would finally be over the waiting for the inevitable.

He nearly wanted to laugh when Valjean appeared and asked for the right to shoot him. It seemed both fitting and ironical.

He led him out of the inn when most of the revolutionaries was already outside, with their backs turned toward them. He used the opportunity to look around, but noticed no child behind the barricade. It made him go to his death with a lighter heart.

Passing over a smaller barricade, they entered a back alley where the bodies of the deceased were put. With some uneasy sensation he noticed that one of them seemed vaguely familiar. It took him a moment to recognise Thénardier's daughter, Éponine. She did not seem like the type to participate in the revolution, from what he knew about her.

He averted his eyes from her to face Valjean and his own fate. For a while they both stood still in silence, looking at each other. Then Valjean reached for his pocket.

Before he could grab what he needed, a small hand quickly slid into his pocket and fished out a knife, snatching it away. The blade opened immediately and pointed at Valjean from the child's raised hands in a threatening manner.

Both Javert and Valjean gaped at her with shock and confusion, speechless.

Shofranka was visibly trying to look confident, but she could not stop her hands from trembling. She took a wide stance, pointing the knife up at Valjean with an angry frown. She might have looked vaguely threatening if she was twice her size - instead, she looked almost laughable.

"Don't kill him!" she commanded loudly, though her voice broke slightly at the end.

Javert swore internally. He should have noticed her going after them, but it was hardly something to be expected.

"You, go home," he said to her quickly, using the fact that Valjean was stunned for a moment. "There is a letter on the desk-"

"I know!" Shofranka interrupted him, turning her head but minding for the knife to be pointing at Valjean. "I've seen it!"

"Then why are you not doing what the letter says?!" Javert scoffed.

Valjean observed them with rising confusion. He did not understand a word they said, Javert realized briefly; they have switched languages.

"I came to help!" Shofranka announced confidently.

"At most you can get yourself killed as well. _Leave_ ," Javert growled in a commanding tone, only to be met with the girl's fierce stare.

"I wasn't going to," Valjean finally decided to interrupt them.

Two heads turned again to him in a sudden bewilderment.

Shofranka blinked. "What?"

"I wasn't going to kill him," Valjean clarified. "Please give me that knife back, I need it."

Shofranka glanced between him and Javert, conflicted.

Javert could not tell Valjean's intentions. Perhaps he was trying to make her go away, but he might have as well decided to extend his revenge to harming the child who tried to help him too. He was an ex-convict, he would consider him capable of anything.

He tensed up when he noticed him extending a hand toward the girl. "Shofranka. _Run_ ," Javert hissed out a warning.

She flinched back at that when Valjean reached out to take the knife from her hands. Javert observed it tensely. Though he could not do much while tied up, he was fully ready to at least fling himself on Valjean if he was to make any threatening move toward the girl.

He did not. He managed to get hold of the knife and took a step back from her. Then, much to Javert's confusion, he turned to him and cut the rope on his neck, then on his wrists and knelt down to cut the rope binding his ankles. When that was done, he stood back up and dropped the knife into his pocket. "You are free," he said to Javert. He turned to Shofranka, raising up the empty hands. "See?"

He wanted to make her leave, Javert guessed. That was a goal he could stand behind. "No help needed," he said to her. "Go back home."

Shofranka kept glancing nervously between them, though she did not seemed on guard as much as before. "And you?"

"I still have some unfinished business to attend to. Go."

Shofranka gave him a last anxious glance. Then she turned on her heel and ran back toward the barricade.

It took Javert a second to react. He took a step in that direction. "Wait, where are you-?!"

"Quiet!" Valjean interrupted him, pulling the back of his jacket. "You'll attract someone here if you shout!"

Javert inhaled deeply. He had to leave her too her fate, again. He took a step back and sized Valjean up with a cold glare. "Well?"

"If I will live to see tomorrow," Valjean started with a sigh, "I reside on Rue de l'Homme Armé. Number 7. I'm known under the name Fauchelevent."

Javert stared back at him with puzzlement, not understanding why was he being told that.

"Hurry and go," Valjean said after a moment of silence, gesturing with his head in the direction opposite to the barricade.

It took Javert a while to realise what he was saying. "Don't mock me," he growled.

"I'm not," Valjean assured.

"I _will_ find you."

"I know. I just gave you my address."

Javert took a step away from the barricade, then another, and paused. He glanced back over his shoulder with hesitation.

Valjean seemed to have noticed that. "If I find that child there, I will try to send him away."

Javert snapped at that, turning on his heel to face Valjean again. "Stop playing this game, kill me rather!"

"Go, before someone comes here."

Slowly, Javert took a step back, turned around and retreated from the alley. Just when he turned the corner, he flinched at the sound of gunshot fired near him. He froze, waiting for his body to register the pain off the wound, but it did not came. He turned around, but he saw nothing more than brick walls and the entrance to the alley. He remained still for a while; hearing nothing but the now-distant gunshots, he hesitantly walked away.


	4. The Dark Road Ahead

The situation on the barricade went downhill quickly from this point on. Valjean hardly had the time to seek out the missing child - who seemed to have disappeared without a trace in the rush behind the barricade once more - before the sound of the drums forced him to let the matter slide.

This attack was different than the previous ones - while at night the soldiers tried to surprise the insurgents, what was happening now was an open charge. Despite him not participating in the combat itself, the effectiveness of this strategy was apparent to him by the sheer number of wounded that he carried away from the barricade.

Merely a glance at the crowd on the other side off the fortifications was enough to extinguish any hope - the opponents could crush the revolutionaries just by their numbers, not to mention the weapons available to both sides. Yet, the barricade held up.

He saw the boys of the barricade be struck down one by one; the one who helped the wounded together with him was pierced by the bayonets as well. The soldiers fell in no fewer numbers, but next ones immediately took their place. On this side of the barricade there were not nearly enough people to replace the fallen.

The one that he was keeping an eye on was still standing - covered in so much blood that he barely seemed alive, but fighting nonetheless. If he will be mortally wounded in the fray, there would be nothing he could do; Valjean tossed away the slight hope that it happens. No, they boy needed to stay alive - he waited for the moment when he will be too badly wounded to continue fighting so that he can drag him away from there, _alive_.

After several attacks the barricade fell at last, and soldiers began to flood the battlefield behind it. He stayed close behind Marius, waiting. He could see the rest of the insurgents retreat into the inn, and with some relief he realized that Marius was not able to join them. It was fortunate, though it left a bitter aftertaste for him - it would be harder, if not impossible, to rescue the boy from the inside of the building.

He acted immediately when he saw him fall - he took hold of him before he even touched the ground, and evacuated him behind the corner of Corinthe, where the wall gave shelter from bullets and the eyes of those fighting.

There he had to stop - Marius was still breathing and safe for now, but he had not thought much of what he would do beyond that point. He put his hopes in the little barricade, where he could use the same escape way that Javert did, but behind it a line of bayonets glistened clearly in the sun. It was already guarded - the soldiers had thought to cut off this way out escaping.

Where else he could turn? The houses around stood locked, with no signs of life - they might have as well been stone walls for all the good that they did. Should he attempt to scale them? With an unconscious young man he was more likely to make them both fall to their deaths than to succeed in doing that.

Despair arose in his chest. Was it all in vain? Was his only option to wait for the soldiers to come and count on their mercy? He knew that none would come.

Then his eyes locked on the ground. There, between the paving stones lying loosely in chaos, was a small iron grate.

At this moment the entrance to the sewers became a ray of hope for him. It was not much and it was not safe, but at least it presented an option of surviving this massacre, both for him and for Marius.

It took him seconds to lift the grate. He lowered Marius into the hole with care; luckily, the floor was not far below. He climbed back up to pull the grate over the hole again to avoid alerting the soldiers.

He peeked out our the hole - and froze when he noticed some movement in the corner.

It took a few seconds for his eyes to readjust to the light. At the wall there laid a few objects that did not make it to the barricade for whatever reason - some small pieces of wood and two empty barrels which seemed to be close to falling apart, laying on their sides.

A grown man could not possibly fit in there, so he calmed down, signing it off as rats or a stray cat and reaching for the grate. When he pulled out toward the hole he casted a last glance toward the barrel. This time he saw more inside of it.

Instead of fur or a tail, what moved closer to the light and allowed him to see it was an arm - a very small one, but undoubtedly human. Above it, a pair of eyes observed him with surprise, now motionlessly.

They both stared at each other in shock for a second before Valjean remembered that he should not linger there.

He glanced down to make sure that Marius was still where he left him - a ray of sunlight coming in through the entrance revealed just enough to ensure him of that - then lifted himself up to the surface and walked toward the child in the barrel.

Javert decided not to include in his report to the perfect the presence of either Shofranka or Valjean on the barricade. He would eventually have to admit the loss of the child in case she doesn't come back, but if that happens that would be a case for another time. The revolution was more important now.

The identity of the insurgent who had freed him, however, did not have to be known to the prefect. For now, he would keep it to himself.

He finished his report and was about to arrive when Gisquet stopped him. "Ah, one more thing."

Javert turned back to face him.

"Concerning the matter of that child that was in your keeping," the prefect continued, not noticing the sudden paling of Javert's face, "we have closed the case that she was a witness for. Any information from her will be no longer needed. Hopefully a placement for her will be found soon," he explained. "That is all."

Javert remained still for a moment. "Understood, monsieur," he said before taking his leave.

Valjean had a chance to observe that child on a barricade earlier, before he proceeded to threaten him with a knife. He was rather easy to remember, even for a person busy looking for one particular young man - about half the size of everyone else there, he spoke little, seemed distracted, flinched at sudden gunshots that came after periods of silence - yet refused to listen to anyone telling him to leave. He was not fighting, of course, but helping in a way that he could - carrying bandages around or performing small tasks for the medics. Valjean found that he behaved similarly to himself there, though in his own way - in contrary to the other child that was on the barricade for a while, he seemed to have nothing to do with the revolutionaries or their ideals. Or perhaps he was just a shy boy who somehow got there.

Now he wondered if Javert was the reason that he was there for. They clearly seemed to know each other. In the case of anyone else, he would assume that he was either his child or cousin, but he could hardly imagine the formidable inspector in the role of a father and her never knew him to have any family. So he had no clue as to who he was.

As much as it piqued his curiosity, it was hardly his main concern at the moment. But after he dragged the half-stunned boy together with him underground, he had no task more important than to ask him questions.

The child climbed down the ladder with no comment. Valjean joined him moments later, after closing the grate and locking away most of the source of light for this dark corridor, then climbed down.

The sensation was strange, like walking down a grave. The gunshots and screams which blocked any other sounds on the surface now reached them as no more than distant echos. The constant drip of water was louder than it, and so were the sounds of them breathing.

They could hear only two breaths, Valjean noticed. He kneeled down next to Marius, barely able to make out where he was, and pressed his hand to the boy's neck to check if he could feel his pulse.

He heard the child take a step toward him- then he gave out a horrified sound, leaping back.

As it echoed in the corridors, Valjean jerked up, realizing the reason for it. "He's alive, don't worry! He's just unconscious," he explained. He was not so sure of it, despite having felt a faint pulse.

The child stepped again toward them with caution, keeping his distance from the body.

Valjean looked around; his eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness. "We cannot stay here. We shall get out." He picked Marius up and turned to the child. "Stay close, don't get lost in here."

He started walking, and the child's footsteps followed him immediately. At first he was walking a small distance behind him, then slowly moved to walking by his side.

"Who is he?" the child asked curiously after a moment, pointing at the body on Valjean's back.

"His name is Marius," Valjean replied. He is my daughter's beloved," he winced slightly as if just saying that was painful to him.

"Oh!" the child exclaimed. "So you came there to help him? I also came to help someone," she said in an understanding tone, nodding.

Valjean glanced to the side, but he could not see much in the darkness. "You mean the inspector?"

"Yes," the child confirmed. "Even if he's in the police," he added grimly.

Valjean noted that tone with curiosity. "Is he your-" he paused. Just what was the most probable version here? "Uh, father, perhaps?" Again, that sounded strange to him.

"Is he?" the child wondered for a moment. "Yes, I think he is now," he said after a while. "He wasn't before, but now he is."

Valjean raised an eyebrow at the strange reply, but chose not to comment on it.

There was silence for a moment.

"My name is Flavie," the child said suddenly.

So she was a girl after all, Valjean noted. "That's nice."

"What is yours?"

He hesitated for a moment. "Ultime Fauchelevent."

"That's a strange name."

"I know."

They walked in silence for a moment until they encountered a place where the tunnel split into two. Valjean stopped with uncertainty, looking at the darkness in his left, then the darkness on his right, unsure of which one he should choose. Though his eyes were used to this place by now, he could still see nothing deeper in the tunnels.

The girl looked at him questioningly. "Do you know where to go?"

"Not exactly," he confessed. "We just need to find another exit."

She gasped. "You shouldn't walk around here without knowing where to go! My mum said so!" she exclaimed.

Valjean observed with raised eyebrows how the child suddenly appeared sadder. "I would say that you shouldn't walk here at all. Have you been here before?"

"Yes! A few times," she said proudly.

"Do you know how to find the exit, then?"

Her smile died down. "Not really. I always knew where I was supposed to go. And I never went anywhere far on my own."

"Oh, well," Valjean shrugged. "We'll make it somehow. Let's go that way," he said, heading off into the tunnel that he supposed should lead him toward the Seine.

The duty of patrolling the bank to check the supposed criminal activity there was the last thing Javert wanted to do now, but he did not protest when the prefect sent him away to continue with his duties. Still, it was surprisingly hard to focus on his job now. He found himself glancing nervously at the panorama of the city every time a gunshot sounded in the air, until the sounds died down completely.

The duty did nothing to lift his mood. He had foolishly let Thénardier - for he was sure that it was him - escape through the entrance to the sewers. He did not remember it being there and, to be fair, he did not expect the man to be in possession of a government key.

He waited at that spot, hoping for anything that would not make this case a complete failure. Thénardier had to come out eventually, unless he would dare to venture further into the sewer, or perhaps other men would come.

He expected to spend hours like this. This has given him all the time to think about the recent events. He would prefer to have something to help him take his mind off it, but the distant gunshots and the stinging sensation on his chafed wrists were still too real to let him forget the barricade.

He could still not quite comprehend it. Not only Valjean has been found still alive and in Paris, like he had suspected, but he _saved_ his live instead of taking it. It escaped all logic. He should be long dead, not standing at the bank of the Seine waiting for criminals.

The other side of his mind reminded him that he left a child that was under his care in the middle of a military conflict. He hoped that the soldiers would not shoot to a small child, but his mind has produced more than enough ways in which she could die there.

He squeezed his aching wrist, forcing himself to push both of these thoughts back and focus on his duty.

Still, he could not help but think.

Valjean was surprised at how quick the child warmed up and became talkative. He had to shush her every once in a while, worried that someone might hear her chatter. Though his attention only flickered to her for moments, as concerns about Cosette and finding a way out bothered him more, he still caught snippets of the stories told by her in a constant whisper, not disturbed by his lack of reaction. He understood that she had something in common with a certain gang of criminals of some sorts. It made her connection to Javert far more puzzling.

Talking seemed to calm the girl down, she seemed to grow scared whenever she stopped, so he allowed her to continue. She only became quiet when they had to avoid a patrol of police, then resumed her talking as soon as she felt that they were safe. Valjean was slightly surprised how a child who called inspector Javert her father was nearly eager not to face the police. He considered making her go to the patrol, say that she got there by an accident, ask for help - she told her that, but she was horrified by the idea. Not wanting to encourage her to protest loudly and reveal their presence to the patrol, he abandoned the plan.

He had to get away from here, not for himself or this unconscious boy that he carried, but for Cosette and that strange little child who walked beside him.

Javert jerked up when he heard the metallic sound of a key being turned in a lock. He made sure that he was hidden from sight behind the pile of rubbish. Finally, his waiting paid off - he spent nearly half a day there, and he was already having second about whether Thénardier was still there. But he was patient - apparently, rightly so.

To his surprise, it was not Thénardier who came out of the open grating. It was a man of visibly stronger built than him, covered in filth beyond recognition and carrying what appeared to be a dead body.

He might have not caught Thénardier, but he found a murderer instead.

He confidently stepped toward him, clutching his bludgeon. "Who are you?" He demanded in a rough voice.

The dirtied face bent over the motionless body turned and stared at him in shock.

Before he got a response, he heard a short squeal. A second filth-covered shape, this one much smaller, darted from the exit from the sewers. Without stopping, it clashed into him, causing him to sway, and clung to his leg.

It took him a moment to even realize that the shape was also talking.

"-and I thought that we would never get away from there because monsieur Fauchelevent said that he didn't _exactly_ know the way and people get lost there a lot! And it was horribly dark there because we had no lamp like you should have there and I barely saw anything-"

He barely made out the words over the sudden buzzing in his head. Fauchelevent. He had heard this name just a few hours ago.

His eyes switched between the child covering his clothes with filth from the sewers while rambling, and the man who in the meantime managed to stand up, leaving the dead body sitting up against the wall.

He was simultaneously relieved that the child was unharmed and absolutely horrified by the fact that she came there with Jean Valjean, and that fate made him confront that man again. He did not know what to make of the situation.

He slowly realized that his hand has been clenched on Shofranka's shoulder. He let go of it and moved her away far enough to make her let go of him as well.

He took a step toward the man who now watched him, seemingly about to say something. He grabbed him by the shoulders, ignoring his confused look, bending over him to examine his face. If he hoped to see anything that would disprove him being Valjean, he did not find it. The face hidden behind a layer of filth and the brown eyes looking back at him suggested rather a cruel trick of fate than a mistake.

"I will not run," said the face slowly. "I only ask you for one thing."

Javert stared at him, letting go of his shoulders and moving back slightly.

"Since I managed to get your daughter back-"

"She's not," Javert corrected dryly.

"-permit me to deliver this boy to him home as well. Then I'm yours."

Javert gazed at the motionless body, sitting slouched against the wall, as dirty as Valjean and Shofranka. "He hardly seems alive."

"He is. Just barely. That is why hurry is required. He needs a doctor."

Javert had to ignore the hand tugging at the edge of his coat. "Who is he, anyway?" he asked, not directing the question to Valjean but rather seemed to be asking it of the unconscious man himself. Not waiting for an answer, he took out a handkerchief and dipped it in the river, then wiped the boy's face with it.

"His name is Marius, he lives on Rue de Filles-du-Calvaire," Valjean's answer to the question came, causing Javert to shudder.

"He was on the barricade," he said with a wince, looking at the boy's pale face. It was the one who seemed vaguely familiar to him for some reason, though he could not quite recall where he had met him before. Perhaps he had seen him during the past weeks when he was investigating the insurgent activity.

He stepped back when Valjean's hand appeared before him, reaching toward the young man's coat. He took out a pocket-book and handed it to Javert, opened on a page with a few lines scribbled there in hurry.

"Gillenormand, Rue des Filles-du-Calvaire, No. 6," Javert read out quietly, taking the pocket-book. He straightened his back and turned to the side - only to see a child's face looking at him with an almost comical frown.

"Stop ignoring me," Shofranka said, visibly offended.

"What do you want?" Javert snapped back. "Go home."

She crossed her arms with stubbornness. "No."

Javert's lips thinned into a line. Instead of answering, he turned to the carriage that has been waiting for him. "Coachman!"

He noticed with the corner of his eye that Valjean picked up the unconscious man carefully, visibly confused but luckily not commenting on the situation. Javert was not sure if he would stand any questions at the moment.

Moments later, Valjean was packing Marius into the carriage while Javert, followed by a silent angry child, was giving the address to the coachman.

Marius was laid down on the back seat, and Valjean sat down on the front one. As the unconscious body took the entire seat, Javert had little choice but to join Valjean there.

He was about to close the door when he noticed Shofranka standing in the way.

"There is no more space for you," he said. "Go back home."

She huffed with outrage. "I won't! I'm going too!" this being said, she climbed into the carriage, climbed over Javert's legs and squeezed herself between him and Valjean.

Javert watched it with a scowl. He hardly had any will to remain here and argue with the child. Shaking his head, he shut the carriage door. He gave a sign to the coachman and they took off in silence.

There would be no movement in the carriage of it wasn't for Shofranka being unable to remain still, turning her head right and left, examining the inside of the carriage, the passengers and the lights visible behind the panes of glass, passing by quickly. Javert sat motionless, his head turned toward the window, ignoring the presence of the others. Valjean was similarly still, with an empty gaze locked on Marius on the opposite seat and an expression showing nothing but weariness. Marius, on his part, could have as well been a dead body, from which only a closer examination could discern him, when the only motion he made was being thrown about the seat when the carriage jumped on the uneven paving stones.

Though the situation was uncomfortable for all three conscious passengers squeezed together on the seat made for two, the only one who expressed it was Shofranka. She kept getting more restless as the journey carried on, throwing quick glances around, swinging her legs and crumpling the fabric of her shirt.

After a while, her eyes stopped on Javert. She observed him in silence for a moment, then leaned against his side, pressing her forehead into his arm. "I'm glad you didn't die after all," she mumbled.

Both Javert and Valjean jerked up at the sudden voice, even though it was quiet.

Javert stared at her for a moment. "Stop sticking to me, you're all dirty," he growled finally.

All that he gained by that was that she wrapped her arms around his arm clung to it.

He shot her a deadly glare, which she did not see with her face buried in his sleeve. Instead, Javert looked behind her to notice that Valjean has been watching them with an expression of wonder. Seeing Javert look in his direction, he quickly averted his gaze.

Much to Javert's dismay, Shofranka even walked with them into Marius' grandfather's house, just to wander around and watch the wealthy-looking building. When they got back from the house that they have roused with alarm back into the disturbing silence of the carriage, she placed herself on the back seat, not minding the blood stains that Marius left there.

Before the situation forced him to act on it, Javert heard Valjean call his name. He turned his head to him with some reluctance.

"I must ask you to grant me another favour," Valjean said.

"What is it?" Javert asked gravely.

"Permit me to visit my home for one instant. I will ask for nothing more then."

Javert contemplated it for a second. It suited him. He nodded silently, then leaned toward the driver to give him the same address that Valjean has given him on the barricade.

Valjean looked like he was ready to try convincing him to agree, and settled back, surprised.

Shofranka started wriggling around as soon as the carriage took off, kicking the floor and fiddling with every part of the inside of the carriage that she could reach. She occasionally glanced at the two silent men, but neither paid attention to her behaviour.

"Where are we going after that?" she asked finally.

Though both Javert and Valjean twitched at the question, neither of them answered it or even turned his head to meet her gaze.

She pouted with frustration. "Why are we going to your house, anyway?" she directed the question at Valjean.

He blinked as if he was woken from a dream. "I need to speak to my daughter before-" he paused uncertainly- "ah, before I can go anywhere else."

Javert's eyebrows furrowed slightly into a puzzled frown.

"Oh, you have a daughter!" Shofranka exclaimed, resting her chin on her hands with curiosity. "What's her name?"

Valjean stared at her for a moment. He glanced at Javert, but the inspector seemed not to even hear them, turned toward the window. He smiled slightly, with a smile that did not reach his eyes. "Cosette. Well, technically it's Euphrasie, but everyone has always called her Cosette."

"Cosette," the girl repeated, then nodded approvingly. "I like it. What is she like?"

"She's-" Valjean stopped, unsure of how to start. "Well, she's much older than you. She's an adult now, I suppose."

"I want to meet her," Shofranka decided suddenly.

Valjean paled a bit. "I- I don't know if it's possible now."

"Why not?"

"Uh," he replied, "it's hardly a proper time to pay a visit to someone, isn't it?" He made up a reason quickly.

"Aw," Shofranka crossed her arms with disappointment. "Tell me more about her, then!"

Valjean hesitated a bit more but under the girl's hopeful look he started speaking. It was a topic he could surely write essays on, but the longer he went on, the more he looked like he might break down in tears at any minute.

Shofranka did not notice that. She kept asking more questions and listening with interest for the rest of the journey.

Javert gave no sign that he hears anything, not tearing his eyes off the window. Only his hand resting on the seat clutched it's edge so tightly that his knuckles went white.

The situation was brought to an end by the carriage halting.

They had to stop before the entrance to Rue de l'Homme Armé, for the street itself was too narrow for carriages. Leaving the carriage behind, they walked the rest of the way in silence until they reached number 7.

Javert glanced at the old building. "Go," he said simply to Valjean, leaning at the stone pillar at the entrance and crossing his arms. "I will wait here."

Valjean stared back at him with a strange look on his face, but walked toward the door with no further comment.

Javert lowered his eyes. Shofranka was shifting on her feet impatiently, watching the door with focus as it closed behind Valjean. He contemplated the situation for a moment. "Go after him," he said finally. "See it that he hurries."

The girl beamed back at him, nodding with excitement, then sprinted toward the door and disappeared in the building in a matter of seconds.

Immediately, Javert turned back to send the carriage away.

Shofranka caught up to Valjean on the staircase.

"I like this house," she commented, glancing around. "It seems cosy."

Valjean nodded absently, barely registering her presence as he walked up slowly, with a heavy heart. He mechanically leaned out of the window on stairway, breathing in the night air. He opened his eyes, and froze immediately.

The girl noticed that. "What? What is it?" she asked. Having received no answer, she trotted toward the window and pulled herself up to look through it. "I don't see anything."

"He's gone," Valjean mumbled with disbelief. "He left."

The girl's eyes widened, finally noticing what was not right behind the window. "What now!" she exclaimed, letting herself drop down to the floor. Taking a step back, she stared at the window with question. "Where did he go?" she asked, turning to Valjean.

Seeing him as confused as she was, she turned on her heel and ran downstairs.

Valjean stood there dumbfounded, looking at the way leading to his flat, where he could rest and where Cosette awaited him, and at the stairway on which the child's frail figure just disappeared. He considered the situation for a moment, but hearing the girl open the door his conflicted sense of duty won. He decided that a small child running around Paris in unrest, lost, was more urgent. He gave the way upstairs a last melancholic glance, then turned away and followed the girl with haste.

Shofranka ran out on the street and halted there, unsure of how to proceed. Indeed, Javert had disappeared, and so did the carriage. There was no living creature within the reach of her eyes.

Feeling her eyes begin to sting a little, she looked toward one end of the street, then the other one. She had not a slightest idea where Javert could have gone. Maybe he went home, leaving her here?

She jumped up, hearing the white-haired man behind her. He might have been a part of this all too, somehow! He might try to stop her!

Not waiting for him to catch up to her, she took off, sprinting in the direction where they came from.

The streets were absolutely deserted. Perhaps she should be glad that there was nobody there to stop or question her, but it terrified her beyond reason. With not a single soul outside and no more life than a few rats scurrying away when she ran past them, she might have as well been the last person on this world. Nobody even peeked out of the window to see the child running through every street and alley around, there was nobody to ask about her, nobody who could tell her if perhaps they have seen a man in a black greatcoat pass through there recently.

And Javert had vanished into thin air.

She had some idea about how big Paris was. She could be running like that for days with no result.

She ran through the streets leading in the direction of Javert's apartment, but she stopped after some distance. She did not see anyone walking, and didn't even hear the carriage in the distance. The eerie silence suggested her to turn back and look elsewhere while little enough time has passed for her to have a chance on finding him. She could go home if that failed.

Every time she stopped to catch her breath, out was harder too calm it and more teardrops dripped down her cheeks. She had never felt so utterly alone in Paris; or at least not since her mum-

She cut the thought short and broke back into running.

It took what felt like hours of running panically before she was stopped. She was running along the Seine when a movement on one of the bridges stopped her. This was the first time she had seen a human, not counting a police patrol which she had promptly avoided.

There was something vaguely familiar about that figure. She felt her heart rush as she trotted toward the bridge.

She had a vague idea that she was supposed to be mad and hate him but the relief was too big - she had found him, at last!

She trotted toward him and pulled on his sleeve. The hand did not move, gripping the parapet of the bridge tightly, and neither did the rest of him. He blinked with confusion, still not tearing his eyes off the river before him.

She pouted and grabbed his wrist. She pulled it with all of her strength until he was forced to turn toward her - he did so with some surprise painted on his face, as if he did not notice her before.

Shofranka let go of his wrist and crossed her arms. "What do you think you are doing?" she asked in the most adult voice that she could - in the same tone that her mother used to speak in when she scolded her for doing something remarkably irresponsible.

Javert looked as if he needed a moment to comprehend the situation. He opened his mouth, then closed it. "Go home," he uttered at last.

Shofranka huffed with outrage. "You can't just leave me with strangers and wander off somewhere without telling! You scared me!" She tried to sound angry, but she felt herself being close to tears.

Javert breathed out loudly, calming himself down. "Look, the letter I left there- It had directions, you've read them? You need to do what it says-"

"But you're not dead!" she protested. "So it doesn't matter, right?"

Javert looked like he was about to disagree with both of the sentences. "Just follow the letter."

Silence fell for a moment as Shofranka stared at him in shock. "You can't do that!" She looked at him, expecting an answer, but none came. She felt tears well up in her eyes. "Is that because I ran off? I won't do it again, I swear! And I will learn how to read and write properly! I don't want to go to some monastery!" She grabbed the edge of his coat. "I'm not that angry about the inspector thing, you know! You might be a policeman but you don't seem like a bad one! And I can even do housework! Don't lock me somewhere with a bunch of strangers for the rest of my life! Please!" At this point there were tears falling down from her cheeks onto the ground. She hid her face in Javert's coat for a second, then jumped back, letting go of the fabric. "Are you mad because I keep pulling on your coat after you told me not to? I won't touch it again! Really!" She could feel speaking getting harder for her when she kept getting no response. "I will do better! Don't send me away yet!"

Javert watched speechlessly as she went from talking panically to sobbing. She seemed unable to say anything else, having broken into crying.

It took him a long while to even stir. He took a step toward the girl and placed a hand on her shoulder, having to bend just to do that. "Let's go."

She went quiet instantly and raised the reddened eyes on him with surprise.

He straightened back up and took a step back. Gesturing with his head in the direction of his house, he reached a hand out toward her slightly. "Well?"

She rubbed her eyes to dry them, staring at him, dumbfounded. "No letters?"

"No letters," Javert confirmed with a shake of his head. "Come, it's late."

He turned back and before he could walk two steps he heard quick footsteps behind him. Within a second the girl caught up with him, catching his hand with both of hers.

She let go with fear instantly, jumping back, remembering what she was promising just a while ago. Javert rolled his eyes and caught her had before she dropped it down.

He looked back over his shoulder slightly and stopped in his steps. It was dark, but his eyes were keen enough to notice a figure standing in the shadow of the buildings just next to the bridge. He saw the light of the streetlamp reflected in the white hair when the man retreated deeper into the shadow. He remained still for a moment and despite the distance he could feel the other man watching him as well.

Spotting a slight movement out of the corner of his eye, he looked at the girl at his side. She noticed him watching the man across the bridge, and now looked in that direction as well. She raised her hand and waved.

Without waiting to check if the man waves back, Javert turned on his heel and walked away in the other direction. Shofranka trotted at his side, squeezing his hand. She smiled at the dark road ahead.


End file.
